Tuff Love

Women become empowered and inspired when they tap into things they normally would just hide from other women, like negative emotions of physical imperfections. This idea of competition between women starts early when little girls start to swim in a pool of jealousy and comparison. But as grown women, we can choose to reframe this scarcity mindset into a passion, learning, creativity and positive energy. If we really look at ourselves and see what we really look like, there is no need to look for the validation of others.

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This is show number five between Arielle Brown and Jamie Thompson talking about things that need to be talked about. This week’s show is about women’s competition, comparison and the scarcity mindset. It’s a humdinger.

Listen to the podcast here:

This is episode five of Six Vulnerable Conversations Between Two Women. I am Arielle Brown and this is my colleague, collaborator, and partner in crime for this six‑week video series, Jamie Thompson. What we’re doing in each of these conversations is going into a raw, live, unscripted dialogue into aspects of what it means to be a woman, navigating the world of connection, communication, intimacy, relating and having the conversations that so many of us are collectively experiencing in our internal worlds but rarely speaking or bringing to the surface in our relationships and in our external reality. Our intention in these conversations is to open up a space where these very important, edgy, juicy conversations can have a space and permission to breathe and be heard in the hopes that these are conversations that will ripple out from this space.

We are going to be diving in to the conversation of competition, jealousy, and scarcity mindset in women. Jamie, what are you excited about this conversation?

I’m excited about this conversation because I used to swim in a pool of jealousy and competition with other women specifically in my own process of learning to transmute that fire into passion, creativity, life force, and reframing the energy to be something that I experienced as something that empowers me and inspires me. One of my very favorite things is helping women to access their power through some of these uncomfortable or perceived negative emotions. This is one of the very greatest ones that have such an ability to yield such a great power and force when redirected properly.

You were telling me a little bit about your history that led to you being able to alchemize jealousy. I’m curious if you’d share with us.

When I was in high school and I wanted to be cool and popular. I was a stoner chick hanging out with the stoner people, and I wanted to be the homecoming queen. It was my yearning and my desire. I would never tell anyone that because I was masquerading with the mask of, “No, I’m cool being uncool.” It was my mask but the truth was I wanted it. Fast forward, I moved to LA and became an actor at one point. A lot of people don’t know that part of my journey. It feels like another lifetime. I was an actor in Los Angeles. That was another place where I was always looking to the cool people and the popular people and the people who I thought were more successful than me and the women that were more beautiful and the people that just seem to have it all. I had to work so hard, but they were naturally great.

I had a lot of that still going on. I remember one moment when I went into one of the most popular acting teachers in Los Angeles. She was the person that you go to if you want to be successful. I was excited because my friend had referred me there. My friend had been accepted to work with her directly. This acting teacher was her champion and that meant something. I went in and auditioned for her and she said to me, “I’m not going to put you in my class because I don’t think you’re ready. You’re presenting yourself incorrectly. Rather than being a leading lady, you’re more of the pretty character best friend type.”

I remember at that moment, my whole being just lit up and it was like I was on fire. It was like, “Don’t tell me that.” I took that energy and it fed my story even more of, “I need to be prettier. I need to be better. I need to work harder.” It created this monster. It fed the monster in me that thought that I needed to do something in order to be wanted and be accepted. This was early twenties. Through the process of learning how to burn in that fire, that moment where she said something, it activated this fire in me, learning how to transmute that into the pure energy that it is that I can create with. There are a few ways that I’ve learned to do that, but I’m curious if you have any thoughts, Arielle.

What it makes me think of is when I’ve had to burn in a fire like of that jealousy. I’ve been in an open relationship that’s taken many forms for a little over two years. I always was and still am a very competitive person. The beautiful thing is that competition takes on healthy forms now as opposed to the aspects of competition that I try to hide or minimize. The place where I was forced to be honest about my jealousy and ugly competition and comparison between women was when I dated someone who we were agreeing to be in an open relationship. I’d been in monogamous relationships my entire life. I didn’t want to be in a monogamous relationship. I wanted to have experiences with other men. As a result, I needed to allow my partner to do this as well or else this would be this double standard that I’d just be like, “Arielle, that’s not going to work.” What it required in me was to look at a deep level where I thought that I was interchangeable or where I thought that I always replaceable.

I’m not advocating that everyone do this. This isn’t necessarily the way that you need to overcome jealousy. For me, that’s the approach that I took. It’s like, “Where do I think that I could be replaced by anyone?” There’s this interchangeability to women because so much of us are conditioned to that. Our value as a woman is associated with how attractive we are or how good a lay we are or something like that. I’ve gotten to this place where I’ve gotten super connected to the badass that I am, like I feel like I’m a fucking amazing woman, fucking amazing human being, and that every other woman that I come in contact with is equally a fucking amazing human being who is entirely different from me. I had a sister reach out to me who’s wanting to explore playing with some dominant-submissive roles with a man and she’s like, “How would you feel about me doing that with your partner?” To be in this place where I’m so grounded in myself and loving in my connection with this woman, I can be like, “Let’s create a container that feels good for all of us and explore that.” It has not always been that way. That’s a bit of my personal experience about it.

One thing I’m hearing in what you’re sharing is becoming intimately connected with what we are. That was a big part of the journey for me. Going back to this experience I had in Los Angeles when I started sitting in my power and taking off in a new way was when I realized and held up the mirror and just sat there with myself. This is an exercise I have done. I sat there and looked at myself for twenty minutes a day for two weeks naked and just being with what I am and looking at what I look like, noticing the asymmetry in my face and I think I have weird calves. It’s being with the parts of myself that I might normally want to hide or judge or think that need to be different.

A lot of times, what I was finding in my experience being an actor, a lot of it was trying to be something that I didn’t think I was. Instead of letting myself be inspired by what other people authentically are and allowing that to bring the fire that’s burning in me, when I see that, it is the fire of inspiration that’s trying to point me into who I am. When I sit in that, this new part of myself comes forth without the mask of trying to do it like someone else, but rather the experience of who I am, and it has nothing to do with anyone else. If I’m trying to seek validation from an acting teacher, a partner, a friend, or the media or Facebook, then there’s self-abandonment. I’m abandoning myself in order to have approval from someone else, which perpetuates the experience of jealousy.

What comes to mind is an analogy that I’ve used before. When we get overly focused on comparing yourself with someone else, we’re at the forefront of our own shit that’s like sailing through the sea. What can happen is when we go into competition or comparison and jealousy, we can wind up jumping off our own ship and trying to get this other ship to collude with the direction that we are going. We become totally ungrounded and centered in our own ship and our own reality and then we’re trying to pull this other ship along with us that has its own agenda because it is its own being. What I’m hearing you say around comparison around beauty, I know I’ve experienced that in my business as well.

Competition Between Women: If I’m trying to seek validation from an acting teacher, a partner, a friend or the media or Facebook, then there’s self-abandonment.

The times where I am most successful in my business where I am centered and connected to what am I inspired by. When I’m not processing it or filtering it through “How many Facebook likes did I get there?” It is when I’m able to move most easefully, when it tends to generate the most prosperity, connection, or whatever it is. There is something around being in my microcosm of experience that allows me to invite in more of what I want. The piece that I feel like we’re adding on here is that’s awesome, but we don’t want this to be a one-woman show. How do we stay centered in the badassery of our own experience and our own humanity while having it so that there is enough space and ability to hold other women’s amazing-ness without needing to minimize our own?

I had an experience. One of the pieces where this transitions for me is as I stopped being jealous of other people. Jealousy might come through as a passing thought, but what sticks is an inspiration and aliveness. I want to share a couple things that I do around that and then how it has played for me and the other realm of people being jealous of me and how I approached that. As I was talking to some friends and clients about doing this particular segment of our podcast, they were like, “I don’t know what to do when women are jealous of me. It’s just uncomfortable.” I want to speak to that. Specifically when I find someone who brings something up in me, for me it’s reframed to aliveness.

If someone activates what could be jealousy, it’s inspiration, it’s aliveness. It’s something that I lean into. If I feel that with someone, that is the person I’m going to go up and talk to in the room. If I feel that, I’m going to be like, “Hi, who are you? How are you? What’s happening? Let’s talk,” and drop in with that person and lean into the connection. Many times when I do that, I find that there’s a piece in the way that they’re being or what they’re doing in the world that is reflecting something that I want, that I might not know that I want yet. I feel into it and it’s like, “She has a way of sitting in her throne yet also compassionate at the same time.”

That was what I encountered recently where I was like, “What is it about this woman? There’s something.” I ended up speaking with her at an event for about half an hour and discovered a way of being that she embodies that that I was like, “Yes, I’m bringing that out in myself more.” That was an actual technique that I use when I do experience what could be jealousy and what could turn me into a place of competition or minimizing myself or idolizing someone else and rather being able to lean into it.

Here’s the main distinction that in order to be able to transmute jealousy and be able to receive the quality that we’re wanting in this other woman, we need to be able to shift out of judgment and in the celebration of that woman and that can be one or any person. That can be one of the most challenging things because we’re conditioned in our culture for women. If a woman’s too sexy, judge her. If a woman’s too fat, judge her. If a woman is too prude, judge her. If a woman is too outspoken, judge her. It’s all these qualities that we desire to cultivate in ourselves. If our preemptiveness is to judge it, it literally blocks us from the ability absorb it, integrate it, and express it in ourselves.

This goes directly into the next piece that I want to talk about, which is how to handle it when someone is jealous of us. That’s the other side of this. The tendency is to be like, “Women are jealous of me and I don’t like it. What do I do about it?” Then to judge those who are jealous of us the same way that we probably used to judge at some point in our life others who we thought were better than us. There’s judgment consciousness that creates jealousy even as a possibility.

When someone is jealous of me and I see that my initial experience is, “There’s work here, there’s something juicy,” rather than close to that woman or dim myself in some way to make her feel better or take in her energy that she’s projecting, her power that she’s projecting outside of herself onto me, rather than taking that on to gratify my own ego, I hold a space of reflection and not taking the energy on, saying yes to it, meeting it, and holding it as something for her to see and a new space for her to step into.

Much of the time, I will open to a woman where I have a sense that that’s going on. I’m tuned into what feels like there could be some jealousy or putting me on a pedestal or something like that happening and it’s turning into it. Many times, depending on the nature of the conversation, I’ll even say, “Is there something here for you?” or, “Is there something that’s triggering about me for you?” That’s one of my favorite questions to ask people in general. It’s interesting like, “What triggers you about me?” or, “What do you find difficult about me?”

Many times, it’s a great reflection for me as human and it’s where the juice is. If we can get right to that, then there’s a baseline of what we can work from. I had a moment at Burning Man a couple years ago where I had just led a workshop on embodying our sensuality, sexuality and intimacy and what the difference is between the three and having freedom and liberation in it. A woman came up and was like, “You’re so amazing. I don’t know if I could ever be like you.” I was like, “What is that? Do you want to sit down and have a conversation about this?”

We sat down for fifteen minutes and had this conversation that completely rewired and changed the way that she saw herself in her own sensuality. It changed the way that I experienced people being jealous of me because we leaned into it and now we’re friends. She became a client at one point. It was this magical interaction that happened because we decided to take that energy and just go right into the root of it.

What I’m hearing is you become open and you become reflective when a woman expresses some type of jealousy. I had an experience where I am in Hawaii for a few months now and I’m cultivating a relationship with this sanctuary. I went to this ecstatic dance and there was this woman who was standing behind the house made of chocolate and elixir bar, and I’m a total foodie. I went up this beautiful younger woman and I was like, “Are these house-made? What’s the deal with these?” She’s like, “Yeah, my partner made them.” We were getting into this sweet, juicy space together and then I go off on my merry way.

I come back an hour later after I’d been dancing, and her partner, I’m assuming it’s her partner who was there, I go up to him and I was like, “I see. You’re the man that made the chocolates,” and he’s totally in his element. He’s the chef there like, “We have this state of the art facility. We grow our own cacao. I have a background in culinary.” I’m lighting up and not lighting up from this place of like, “I want to have sex with this man,” or “I want to date this man,” but like, “What a beautiful life this man has created for himself,” and holding that space of turn-on and excitement and his partner is standing there, and at this point the conversation is with the man.

What I noticed out of the periphery of my eye and her energy fields is that I feel her starting to shut down. I know in that moment that if I was to shift focus and include her, it would be from a place of care-taking. I didn’t do that. I could feel like she’s shutting down, this beautiful flower that’s started to bloom with us is curling back up. The entire dynamic between us has shifted and I could feel the part of me that wants to play like not like I’ve done something wrong. Luckily, I wasn’t in that place, but like, “This is happening and I refuse to shut down my ability to experience joy.”

The point here is that we all feel the freedom to be alive and to celebrate and to be turned on without fear that we are threatening anyone else. I’m going to be working at this place. I have a desire to connect with this woman and I have my own ideas of how I’ll initiate that and engage that, but I’m curious. For a woman who perhaps isn’t expressing jealousy or competition, but as instead shutting down, how would you work with that?

I would approach it. I would absolutely lean into it still and even approach her and say something like, “I have this experience and I’m not sure if this experience is shared reality or if it’s my own story that’s going on. Are you open to hearing it?” Get a buy-in, so it’s not this unsolicited dropping a bomb on this person. Then I would let her know like, “My experience was we had this great connection and then I started talking to your boyfriend or husband and I felt the energy between us shift. I want to see if that was going on for you? I’d also be willing to share what was going on for me as well, so that you know, so that we can create a different kind of relationship.” I like to also say a disclaimer that’s, “Whatever you’re experiencing is completely okay with me and I just want you to know I accept whatever your experience is,” and use it as an opportunity to create a different level of sisterhood and be someone who is trustworthy in that way.

I had an experience where something like this happened with a friend couple that I know. Her fiancé and I were at a party before she got there. One of the camera people came around and took a picture of us. Her and I happened to look a lot alike, we’re soul twins. We have this whole thing going, and so people were commenting on the photo like, “What’s going on here? Why is he with this other person?” to her, sending her private messages. She was like, “I didn’t have an issue but I’m a little bit like, ‘What’s going on?’” I called her and we had this great conversation. What she wanted to know was what my intentions were. She found out that it was completely friendly and there was nothing sexual going on or the desire wasn’t even sexual, it was more of free and fun and having a good time, not even aware of what the potential damage could be with it. In this dropping in of what our actual intentions were that everything got cleared up and our relationship became deeper.

Competition Between Women: Dropping in of what our actual intentions were that everything got cleared up, our relationship became deeper.

I look forward to that conversation. This is where the alchemy happens. It is when we’re willing to be like, “I don’t know how this conversation will look. I don’t even know why I’m bringing this up. I feel a little bit awkward.” That’s how I’ve had to approach it sometimes like, “This is weird. I might be out of left field, but this is what I’m experiencing. Are you experiencing that? How do you feel about this?” Something amazing always comes out of it. Even if I’m wrong and the person is like, “No, I had just gotten a weird text from my boss,” and it wasn’t even about me at all. You don’t know until you ask, but then I find that I’m not operating with an incorrect to listening of this other person.

This is so important at this point in our culture for we, as women to be having these conversations, we’re at this place where we’re realizing the current model where it’s not even that men are in charge. This issue isn’t about men. It’s the current paradigm around power and the certain way that leadership has been cultivated which leadership is, “I can’t have people as equals because then I won’t have the power.” There’s a very linear hierarchical model. A lot of what we’re being called towards is a more circular model of power, a more communal model of power. More women learning how to step in to leadership as in ancient cultures where women were the ones holding council. In order for that to work, we as a human race need to learn how to hold power together.

If we, as women, are to rise into power, we need to learn how to not secretly reject the feminine. We need to figure this out. It’s not this thing that can be put on the backburner anymore. How do we start doing this in our communities? It is a question that I’m looking towards. Along with my private coaching, the thing that I’m going into more and more is we want to expand. We want to change culture and change the way that culture emerges. In order to do that, it all starts with the culture too. How do we get rid of all the passive aggressive things that we’re afraid to say for fear of another having more power than us so that our culture and communities could start to shift where there’s not that underlying agenda as well?

This plays into the men and women aspect as well. Sometimes, as women, we can become jealous of the power that men have and the way that they have it. I, in relationship, used to have this conversation of equality and then competition about not feeling I’m equal to him come up. What’s interesting about that is then I would start playing in the man’s paradigm of competition with him, which is something that I didn’t want. A valid question when we’re creating community and looking around, whether it be two women or men, is, “Do I want what this person has and is doing?”

If I want it, that means that I’m willing to do the work to get it. Otherwise, the want is just a fantasy. It’s easy to look and be like, “I want that power.” It would be cool to be President of the United States, but do I want to do that kind of work? No is the answer. It’s looking and seeing, “Do I want to do that work or is that someone else’s role that they are playing?” I don’t need to be competitive about the role they are playing because what feels much better for me and how that showed up in relationship for me is taking more of the feminine role. I enjoy being more receptive and softer.

I don’t need to be equal to a man in a way that the man is. I can be different and fully in my power as well, but it looks different. To compare them right next to each other wouldn’t give either justice because it’s like comparing a house and a box of apples. They don’t even make sense. It’s not even a comparison that can be made. In building community, it’s looking at what is the role that my highest self wants to be playing. How do I take the actions to create that? What I am truly inspired by? Where is my desire going? Some people want the role of being the activist. Some people want the role of being the healer. Some want the role of being the leader.

All of ourselves are designed and called into being in different ways. What I’ve seen with this in community is we can drop into a flow as a community just like we can in relationship where the energy that’s being channeled through us and that wants to play through us is a divine fit for everyone that we are in relationship with when we’re tuned into that. In that place, there’s not this separation consciousness of competition for roles, but rather a dance of each person playing the role that is best suited to them at this time.

I had a recent experience of that where there were four couples that wound up coming together for this immersive weekend, four women and four men. What happened was I met three other women and each of us held such a unique pole of power. One woman was the holder of the temple space that we were staying at. Her power was she was the conductor of a ritual. She was the person who created sacred space. There was another woman who has the ability to hold objective space for council. There is this beautiful composure and this matriarchal energy to her. Another one of the women had fiery, cat-like energy to her.

For me, it was playful, curious, going under the surface, and shape shifter energy. We all had the experience of being able to sit in a circle together and realize our own unique powers and feeling this thing that could soften me where I realized I didn’t need to beat everyone. It’s what you were saying and looking at the part of us that feels like in order to be worthy, in order to be lovable, in order to be successful, in order to be beautiful and desirable, we need to embody everything. That’s part of why so many conscious, empowered, focused women are totally burnt out and putting on acts of happiness when in reality, we’re dying because we feel like we need to be everything.

I love the need to be everything, and I so relate with that because that strikes the chord of something that I always have my eye on which is my perfectionism. This need to be the best and to feel like I’m in perfect alignment and costumed for the best of everything is exhausting. I had an experience that reminds me of your experience where it was my birthday weekend and I had a bunch of friends together. We had a wonderful condo in Steamboat Springs. It was a beautiful weekend. My group of friends is a bunch of conscious entrepreneur, creator, and visionaries, so when we get together, deep healing work, conscious adult play, all kinds of wonderful aspects happen. I was leading and there’s a way in which I lead well with someone else. It’s part of my receptive nature. I’m more of a responder than I am an initiator. Someone will initiate something and I will carry it through. I’m not the one that initiates.

It’s part of human design for me. What happened is one of the men, I’m so grateful he brought it forward, he said, “I’m super annoyed by the way you’re leading this weekend.” I was like, “Thank you for sharing. What do you want to see more of?” He’s like, “It needs more structure. We need to get buy-in for these circles that we’re holding and these experiences that we’re creating.” I’m like, “You are so right. That is missing. Will you do it?” He’s like, “Oh,” and I was like, “Yeah, do it. I would love that.” What we ended up dropping into was this surrendered leadership where everyone is bringing forth their gifts and my gift lies in the channel and in allowing what wants to come through to come through.

This man’s gift lies in creating the structure for that to happen. It was this perfect marriage where he was annoyed by something that he wanted to bring forth. When he did, I was like, “You’re so right. That is missing. That is definitely missing, and I need that. Thank you.” I felt so honored in being able to relax into what my actual gift was instead of trying to do something that wasn’t in my zone of genius anyway. It was a great realization for me because then moving forward, I’m aware of having someone to hold that or even more aware of holding it myself as a conscious practice with structure and logic.

It makes me think of the book, which I haven’t completed yet, but are you familiar with the book Stealing Fire?

Yes. I love Jamie Wheal.

I remember in the beginning he was talking about these different organizations that utilize flow state as a way to be more effective then he was talking about the navy seals and this concept of dynamic subordinism. What he was talking about is that when the Navy SEALs go into some type of a mission, there’s never one leader, but instead what happens is every single person in the group is a leader in their own right and they drop into this place of group mind where they’re operating in a group, and the instant one of the people know what the next step is to lead, they step out in front and the group forms around that leader, and then when there’s this intuitive like, “I know the next thing,” then the next leader moves and the group moves around them.

I was so turned on by this idea that we are all leaders. When we’re not so focused on being the best and is anyone close to me in the race. All of a sudden, we can drop into this space so we can feel each other and then connect to each other’s gifts and allow different people to support and lead in the moments where they’re meant to support and lead, so that the whole can move into its next evolution. That’s a lot of what this conversation is, not just between women but between humanity. What does the work that we need to do to allow each person’s individual genius and leadership emerge and blossom so that we as a collective can move forward?

A big part of my private coaching work with intimate flow state is helping people to create this group mind at the level of relationship and then at the level of group and then in the level of community and in the level of world. This is where we’re going. The micro for the macro starts in our one-on-one relationships and starts in our group relationships. We want to change the world. Let’s figure out when we can we walk into a room, how we can start to be the one that is creating that flow state that can occur for everyone to step into and start to be the one that’s aware of people’s gifts and championing them and then stating what’s missing.

A big key is being able to take an objective stance in a room rather than having all of our attention on self-consciousness and ourselves and, “Where am I in the pecking order? Where am I in the hierarchy? Who likes me? Who doesn’t?” and taking the perspective of what is missing in this space that I could bring and noticing that. That is what being a leader is. It is noticing what’s missing and bringing it, or noticing what’s missing and seeing someone else that feels like they have the capacity to fill in what’s missing. If it’s not me, being able to be like, “That’s not me and I could try to bring that, but this person could bring that better and that they could elevate this experience,” then being willing to have that conversation or just open up the door. It’s not like telling people what to do, but rather opening up the door of like, “What do you think is missing here? What do you want to bring?” and elevating each other such that this group mind flow state can occur.

Competition Between Women: Being a leader is noticing what’s missing and bringing it.

Our in for this is with the thing that we might be annoyed by, like my friend at my birthday weekend. The thing that was annoyed by is the thing he wanted to bring. I have noticed that for myself so many times where I’m just like, “This space is drab or something,” and it’s like “You want to bring a dance party” so you should do that. You want to bring some lightness and playfulness and conversation because you think it’s serious. This happens to me in crowds of entrepreneurs a lot. I’m like, “Everyone’s in this boring, constantly always only talking about workspace.” I like to bring the playfulness and bring a sort of a different sexy, fun vibe to these crowds where it might seem like it’s a little out of place. People always end up appreciating it and thanking me. It’s a part of what I bring that makes a difference that used to be something that I was just constantly annoyed by in business crowds.

In order to do that, we need to notice the assumption or the story that we’re carrying, which runs something along the lines of people don’t want what I have to bring, or people don’t want to give me what I want. A big part of the coaching work that I do with people is what are the underlying beliefs that you have about your relationship to the nature of your own desires and that which inspires you in terms of how your intimate partners and the world wants to receive you because the stories that we are caring about who we are and what our place is in the world can impact our ability to give our gifts to the fullest extent.

You’ve done a level of work where you have such an approval for what your gifts and desires and inspirations are that you aren’t caught up in the story of like, “Is it okay for me to be me?” so you can get out of your own way, become aware of what is going on in the group because you’re not so caught up in like the struggle of self that you can be present and offer what is needed, which is why it’s so important for us to do our inner work. Some of the easiest places to do that are in an intimate and sexual relationship so that we can get out of our own way and be of service and bring our gifts.

There have been so many times in working with a couple where one person will have a hard time sharing a deep and true desire that they have for fear that the other will judge them, when in fact when they share it, the other person lights up in some way because they’ve been wanting approval for their own desire or even sometimes the exact same thing. It’s like, “That’s what I want too. What have we been doing?” People learn to have that level of approval for both what they want and for bringing what they want to the space of relationship or group.

Jamie, I have a quote and I’m curious if there’s anything you want to share as well. This is a quote from a woman who calls herself Starhawk. She’s a leader, she’s a witch. She is very connected to earth-based medicine and the natural world. She has written a lot of books around connection to the earth and this is for a book called Spiral Dance. So much of what I’m inspired by and why the I do the relationship coaching that I do is because of my desire to experience real depth of community.

This quote is part of what drives me, “We are all a longing to come home to some place we have never been, a place half remembered, and half envisioned. We can only catch glimpses of from time to time community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere, a circle of hands will open to receive us. Eyes will light up as we enter. Voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done, arms to hold us when we falter, a circle of healing, a circle of friends, some place where we can be free.”

I couldn’t find what I was looking for, but that sparked something in me. I feel like there’s this other place that this conversation of jealousy, competition, shadow work leads, and that is Marianne Williamson’s famous quote of, “It’s not our darkness but our light that scares us.” I feel like part of what happens when we see someone else in their power is we see our power and it might seem like it’s in another body and so we have whatever response to that that we do. Ultimately, we are seeing ourselves in our highest when we see other people being amazing in whatever way they are. When we can remember that and champion that, give ourselves permission to step into that, we are stepping into our own greatness and that’s part of what that poem brought for me.

I appreciate how this is something that started at the micro of how individual people relate and then expanding to the macro and how our decisions and how we choose to engage in our intimate relationships ripples out into how we create community. I’m happy that this space can hold both. Thank you for doing the work that you’re doing and being able to hold and breathe into the conversation.

We can keep this totally present moment on the court between us as well because there’s this element in you that I am in complete admiration of. It’s your ability to share what is on your mind regardless of how it’s going to be perceived. That’s the way that I see you in. One of the things that had me say yes to doing these calls and lean into this is because this is an edge for me and it’s gotten a lot easier. Sharing personal vulnerable experiences for me is not something that I do so much naturally.

Since knowing you, I’ve started doing it a lot more professionally. It’s a way in which you’ve called me forth into a new way of being with my truth and sharing even the dirty vulnerable parts with a different kind of clarity and an ownership. It’s a way that in this conversation, in these calls with you that I’ve transmuted, I didn’t realize this until right now, what could’ve been an energy of, “That’s triggering,” or, “She’s so forward. I don’t know that I want to step into that,” but saying “yes” to it and then feeling this new part of myself come forth.

I would love to share a vulnerability and response of an edge for me has just been seeing you and my first experience with you is like, “She’s fucking gorgeous, just this fucking beautiful woman.” So much of my wounding and challenge in college and in high school has always been the story about like, “I’m not attractive. I’m overweight and all these things,” and this fear that I could never relate to the super attractive woman.

Then watching your videos and feeling your composure, I could feel like this is such a beautiful invitation for me to lean into the places where I compare around physical beauty and I can just feel like you had reached out to me and saying like, “I would love if you came out to Burning Man,” and I can feel the edge for me of embodying my sexuality, sensuality physically and in public situations like I’m an incredibly sexual sensual woman, but it tends to only be seen in more my one-on-one dynamics.

Some of the images that I’ve seen, just how you embody yourself on camera, is something that I have such like I want to feel my sensuality in that way and I want to feel comfort and embodying my sensuality in that way and being in connection with you and not making myself separate has just been this beautiful way of realizing like I am that like that, that exists within me. I’m grateful for all of this.

I love hearing that. I feel like this may apply for you as well. This piece of bringing out sensuality and sexuality and being able to sit in whatever way that one wants to in a healthy full approval, fully responsible ownership way is one of my favorite things to do with people. Bringing out someone’s ability to be a little more messy and vulnerable is one of your superpowers. By saying “yes” to these aspects that are a little bit edgy, we both got to trade codes, we got to trade the superpowers and got to sit in our own version of that. It’s not doing it like each other, but it’s rather allowing each other to inspire the peace in our self that wants to come forth.

I’ve never heard it said that way, but yes, inviting the people that we desire to embrace those different aspects, allowing ourselves to be permeable and not pushing away, but instead allowing, it’s the idea of reciprocal altruism, one of my favorite terms that I learned in eighth grade science. How do we give and simultaneously receive in the process?

Next week, we’re going be talking about what it means to be an embodied experiential expert and what does it mean to master how we create our reality. This feels like the topic where everything that underlies the way Jamie and I do what we do and create how we create is going to come to the forefront and kind of pulling back the veil. Jamie, if people want to reach out to you and connect, what’s the best way to do that?

Thank you. For those who are wanting to connect with me about group facilitation and private coaching, you can visit my website at www.ArielleBrown.com. Thank you so much everyone.

Thank you for joining us at Tuff Love. I hope you enjoyed the show. For more shows, please visit TuffLove.Live. If you feel so inclined, please give us a little loving on your favorite podcast app, Stitcher or iTunes. Thank you so much.

Resources mentioned:

About Arielle Brown

Arielle is a Relationship Expert & Intimacy Educator. She specializes in helping people to create deeper connection and intimacy their relationships and greater community. In her private coaching work with singles and couples, she helps people create or revitalize relationships that are authentic to the needs, values and desires of each person. Her group facilitation and workshops focus on cultivating deeper levels of intimacy with others through conscious communication, energetic attunement and sensory awareness of the body. Learn more at www.ariellebrown.com.

About Jamie Thompson

Jamie Thompson is an Erotic & Intimate Communication Expert and founder of Relationship Flow State. She specializes in creating a safe space for conscious couples to have open communication while exploring a new edge of passion, depth, and erotic flow. Jamie combines study of the Quantum Field, communication techniques based in Neuroscience, and somatic movement reprogramming with 10 years of coaching experience to help clients harness their erotic intelligence. She also has an online program to help couples and individuals become fluent in the four ‘Erotic Desire Languages’. Mention this podcast to be considered for a complimentary strategy session and receive a discount code for upcoming programs. Email support@jamiethompsoncoaching.com for details.